Missing supporters

This season the crowds so far in the league games have been poor and the question i would open to debate is what has happened since we reached the Grand Final last season Batley had in the region of 2500 supporters at the game it was a magnificent turnout and i along with other people in our supporters group thaught we may increase our gates by 150-200 instead our support seems to be in decline. Are we entertaining enough, is the cost of admission too high ?.

When you get to a grand final..euphoria dictates the attendance..for example you drag your girlfriend,mum daughter,boyfriend husband and dad there; They all want to be on the bandwagon for a one off game but they are the people that resent paying 17 quid every week; Fev had close on 5000 fans at Headingley in 2007 when they got promoted to the championship; You won't see see most of them now unless Fev hit the big time; Sad but true;

Pakistanis dont respect/ uunderstand/ like rugby league so why would they have any time for little batley.
This old chestnut crops up annually on the forum, am I the only one bored of it, plus saqib murtaza was garbage

Most white people are the same. Bit of a racist generalisation there. The kids in the football courts are always interested in the result. I'd say throw a few free tickets away to local residents for a few games. You never know might gain a few new fans

95% of my friends are football fans and have little to no interest in RL. Not a lot you can do about that.

Pakistanis dont respect/ uunderstand/ like rugby league so why would they have any time for little batley.
This old chestnut crops up annually on the forum, am I the only one bored of it, plus saqib murtaza was garbage

There are around 2 million active RL supporters in the UK.

That's some 3.5% of the total UK population (if we exclude the 1.5 million Muslims)

Of that 2 million, 1.6 million follow Super League. This leaves 400k for the rest of the game - Applying the same figures to the Muslim community means that there would be 14,000 Muslim supporters.

If you (Batley) have an attendance of say 1000 spectators, then you would expect that there would be about 35 Muslims at that game. Now I know what Disraeli said about lies, damned lies and statistics and so my figures are purely for fun and have no other purpose than highlighting a few points.

That said, they do show that targeting a specific community is unlikely to reap big rewards.

I think that the reality is this - Tomorrow my son will run out as mascot for the Bulldogs, and I couldn't tell you who they are playing or what time kick off is (without guessing its at 3pm) As for the cost? I have no idea.

I have seen Muslims at the games. There are more white folk that don't goto games than there are Muslims in Batley. And what has Batley done to get them to come to games? - Nothing.

To me saying all people of Pakistani origin do/don't like/respect/understand something is racist. It's like saying all English people are football hooligans.

Let's face it too many of our own fans aren't very welcoming. I got my grandad (one that doesn't come very often) to come to the Cas game last week and a Batley fan made a comment that he was ###### off at "people call themself fans and only come to the odd game every year". Not very welcoming. He did enjoy the game and is coming again today. I think the comments got to me more than him. But with comments like that which are all too common when we get better crowds. Is it any wonder why we don't get new fans or even old fans return.

Pakistanis dont respect/ uunderstand/ like rugby league so why would they have any time for little batley.
This old chestnut crops up annually on the forum, am I the only one bored of it, plus saqib murtaza was garbage

You might be bored with it, 9'oller, but people whose ethnic origin is Pakistan, Gujarat and Bangladesh are the fastest growing segment of Batley's' population, and if they cannot be enticed to support the Dogs then we will probably suffer long term decline. It is reasonable to argue that we might struggle to attract such support, but nevertheless it remains a sensible topic for discussion on this forum.

Meanwhile, I guess that the best that the individual fan can do to attract support is to be welcoming to visitors to the Mount, bring a friend if we can and be positive to others in discussing games at the Mount. Other ideas welcomed!

Look at post office road where featherstone play.
The adjoining streets of terraces will be brimmed with flat cappers. Leighs old ground was surrounded by corronation street'esque roads with a real sporting ccommunity.
The mount is merely in the wrong place at the wrong time

The argument about the location of the Mount would stand if it weren't for the number of Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield supporters jumping in their cars and leaving the town to go and watch SL clubs.

I don't think the area is the problem I think it's the dominance of close by SL clubs with all the glitz, advertising, TV and big names that come with them.

I'd be interested to see how the birth of SL affected our attendance figures.

Anyone got access to such info?

Of coarse the area is a problem all the houses surrounding our stadium house people who will never attend games fact. We are not talking hundreds there are thousands and as Batley becomes more and more muslim our attendances will continue to fall. That is not racist it is fact . What also is a problem is our ageing fan base we have very few young fans as you say they would rather go to watch super league on the TV or go to the occasional game. I worry for our club in the long term just look at the pathetic turnout on Sunday 650 . We will probably take more to tiprat stadium on Friday.

Of coarse the area is a problem all the houses surrounding our stadium house people who will never attend games fact. We are not talking hundreds there are thousands and as Batley becomes more and more muslim our attendances will continue to fall. That is not racist it is fact . What also is a problem is our ageing fan base we have very few young fans as you say they would rather go to watch super league on the TV or go to the occasional game. I worry for our club in the long term just look at the pathetic turnout on Sunday 650 . We will probably take more to tiprat stadium on Friday.

Come on greavesy - you know it's the lure of those mouth watering burgers that attract the dogs fans in numbers to the Tetleys - and of course the ground is near the stable that was piggys birthplace (it has a plaque on the wall). Hopefully it will be Rams in Fev match mode against dogs in Rochdale match mode, but if you include anybody in the side who can limp twenty yards at jogging pace you'll probably win.

Of coarse the area is a problem all the houses surrounding our stadium house people who will never attend games fact. We are not talking hundreds there are thousands and as Batley becomes more and more muslim our attendances will continue to fall. That is not racist it is fact . What also is a problem is our ageing fan base we have very few young fans as you say they would rather go to watch super league on the TV or go to the occasional game. I worry for our club in the long term just look at the pathetic turnout on Sunday 650 . We will probably take more to tiprat stadium on Friday.

I will say again. What have we actually done to encourage people who live local to the mount to attend games. As far as I can tell we have done nothing. Just because its there doesnt mean people will attend. 99% of the batley fans who attend games now got into the game through family. Going to games with Parents/Grandparents. I am one of them. To be honest if it wasnt for them I would still be going to watch the Rhynos instead.

If it was up to me I would offer the local people free Season Tickets for 2015. They would have to sign up name and Address and would only be able to have a free season ticket once. Lets face it it wouldnt cost the club to do this and it could get people to the games who have never watched Rugby League (You've got to start somewhere). Any loyal fan who would not feel hard done to by having to still pay the £150 for their season ticket as they would be able to see the bigger picture. and hopefully the club would benefit with more paying fans in the following seasons.

I will say again. What have we actually done to encourage people who live local to the mount to attend games. As far as I can tell we have done nothing. Just because its there doesnt mean people will attend. 99% of the batley fans who attend games now got into the game through family. Going to games with Parents/Grandparents. I am one of them. To be honest if it wasnt for them I would still be going to watch the Rhynos instead.

If it was up to me I would offer the local people free Season Tickets for 2015. They would have to sign up name and Address and would only be able to have a free season ticket once. Lets face it it wouldnt cost the club to do this and it could get people to the games who have never watched Rugby League (You've got to start somewhere). Any loyal fan who would not feel hard done to by having to still pay the £150 for their season ticket as they would be able to see the bigger picture. and hopefully the club would benefit with more paying fans in the following seasons.

This could even be done for the remainder of this Season?

This is a joke isn't it?

You'd undermine the entire support base who actually pay to attend games to attract a few "locals"?

Why should I pay full whack because I don't live near the ground??

Maybe we should just let everyone in for free next season? It would be a wonderful Swansong before the club is consigned to the history books.

What would it cost to have a free game for everyone? Perhaps target one of the Cumbrian games and just open the gates (after bombarding the local are with leaflets and handouts at Tesco's and local press etc)

A nice sunny afternoon, bouncy castle for the kids. The extra food and beer sales would ofset some of the loss. I appreciate the season ticket holders wouldn't be happy but they would be helping their club. You could also have a donation gate where you can pay what you want to help .

I reckon on a poor crowd vs a cumbrian team we would get 600. knock off 250 season ticket holders that's 350. If they are a mix of consessions & adults that's around £4000K

Why not start a fund to raise money for a free open day and see what happens?